News

Traffic starting to jam as people head into Oakland and San Francisco for sports, music and Fleet Week events

By Kristin J. Bender Oakland Tribune

Posted:
10/06/2012 08:47:31 AM PDT

Updated:
10/06/2012 03:57:48 PM PDT

Click photo to enlarge

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 05: Emirates Team New Zealand skippered by Dean Barker changes its sail before the sixth fleet race of the America's Cup World Series on October 5, 2012 in San Francisco, California. Teams are racing on an AC45 boat, which is the forerunner to the AC72 that teams will race next year in the Louis Vuitton Cup and America's Cup Finals in San Francisco. Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin (bottom left) was the guest racer on the Emirates boat during this race. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images for Omega)

Around the Bay Area, freeways early this afternoon were jammed with heavy slowdowns and stop-and-go traffic as motorists headed into San Francisco for an epic weekend of sports, music and culture.

The Metropolitan Transportation website, 511.org, reported that traffic was slow on most major highways. Both directions of Interstate 580 in San Leandro, Hayward and Castro Valley had moderate to heavy traffic, and there was some slowing on Interstate 238 in both directions. Highway 24 in both directions was clogged.

There was heavy traffic on Interstate 101 in both directions around Geary Boulevard, Van Ness and Mission Street avenues and other downtown off-ramps. Traffic was moving at least 10 miles per hour slower than the speed limits of 25 mph to 30 mph in those areas.

It was stop-and-go traffic on Highway 92 in both directions between Skyline Boulevard and Main Street.

With all that's going on, there could be up to a million extra people in the densely populated city of 800,000.

BART is running up to a dozen special event trains and longer trains all day Saturday and Sunday and will have extra station agents on duty to help passengers and more technicians on duty to keep equipment operating efficiently. People should walk, bike and carpool if at all possible, transportation officials said.

Crowds are heading into the East Bay and San Francisco for Fleet Week activities, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, America's Cup races, concerts at East Bay music venues, Stanford and UC Berkeley home games, Giants baseball and a slate of parades and street fairs.

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The National Weather Service says a pleasant fall weekend can be expected around the Bay Area after the recent warm spell.